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James Abram Garfield 



A DISCOURSE 



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BY 



DANIEL MERRIMAN DD 



PASTOR OF THE CENTRAL CHURCH 




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^Pamc^ SUbiram <£atficl&, 

Twentieth President of the United States, 

Died on the 19th of September, A.D. 1881, 
Aged 49. 



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bappenctb rarrtp ; tbat is", of sucb as sacrifice tbemscmes to bcatb for tbc gooD 
of tbeir countrp." 



Ill Ex( 

Amer. An:. SoC. 
25 Ji i$Q7 



WOKCESTER, Oct. 4, 1881. 
Dear Sir, — 

The deep impression made by your commemorative Discourse on the 
death of our beloved President, James Abram Garfield, has led to a 
general desire for its publication in print. Accordingly, at a meeting 
of members of the Central Church and Society, held at their chapel 
last evening, the undersigned were instructed to ask of you a copy for 
the press. We add to this recmest now made the expression of our 
personal desires to the same end, 

And remain, with true regard, 

Your parishioners and friends, 

CHAS. E. STEVENS. 
HENRY M. SMITH. 
GEORGE E. GLADWIN. 
GEORGE E. MACKINTIRE. 
WILLIAM E. SAWTELLE. 
The Rev. Daniel Merriman, D.D. 



To Messrs. Charles E. Stevens, Henry M. Smith, Geo. E. Gladwln, 
Geo. E. Mackintire, William E. Sawtelle, 

Committee. 
Gentlemen, — 

In accordance with your request of the 4th inst., I place in your hands 
a copy of my sermon preached on Sunday, 25th of September. 
Believe me to be, gentlemen, 

With high esteem, 

Your friend and pastor, 

DANIEL MERRIMAN. 
Worcester, Oct. 7, 1881. 



A ND ALL THE PEOPLE WEPT AGAIN OVEK HIM. — 2 Sam. iii. 34. 
HE BEING DEAD YET SPEAKETH. — Heb. xi. 4. 



DISCOURSE. 



O IXTEEN years and five months ago, this house, 
^ draped as it is to-day, was filled with a sad con- 
gregation. A sermon was preached on the death of 
Abraham Lincoln. The land had never known such 
lamentation. Yet it is greater to-day. Another 
President, ours by peculiar ties, is dead by an assassin. 
Then the country was divided. Then we were famil- 
iar with the tragedies enacted by the fury of war. 
Then the blow and its fatal result came together. 
Now we are one and at peace. We have had time to 
think and feel, and our sorrow has a greater breadth 
and an indescribable tenderness. The horror which 
seized us at the first dreadful stroke has been deep- 
ened, and turned into continual heart-ache by the 
strain of alternate hope and fear through these eighty 
days, until, at this hour, a nation of fifty millions of 
people sits like one man, silent, bowed, and weeping, 
in a concord of pure, remorseful, and loving sorrow, 



such as was never seen before. History has not 
chronicled, and may not again chronicle, such peculiar, 
unfeigned, and universal grief. The heart of the 
people is melted like wax. The air almost palpitates 
with their distress, and the poor and inadequate signs 
of their woe hang heavily from ocean to ocean. 

Across the seas England and England's Queen, by 
unprecedented emblem, tribute, and speech, lament 
with us as though their own were dead ; and far over 
the wide continents and sea-girt isles the shadow falls ; 
and mourners unknown to us seem to come and sit 
down in the ashes by our side to-day, and speak to 
us in their strange languages of a common sorrow. 
Dead at last is Garfield the President. A throb of 
pain goes round the world, as from the heart to the 
finger-tips of a man. The wheels of commerce 
are stilled. Noisy exchanges stop for a while their 
clamor. The talk in senates and cabinets is hushed. 
The . ensigns of armies are muffled. Ancient cathe- 
drals fill their arches with the plaint of solemn mise- 
reres. Kings and emperors, as they sent messages of 
sympathetic inquiry into that sick chamber, now hasten 
to offer their meed of condolence and praise. For not 
only a family, not only a nation, but a world, have 
been watching at that bedside. The thoughts and 
affections of millions through these sad weeks have 
been slowly knit by ties of reverence, love, and sym- 



pathy, to that one brave heart so patiently struggling 
there, till when at last it stopped its beating, the pulses 
of a world stood still. 

And he was worthy of it all, this great yet simple 
countryman of ours, whom we loved and trusted, and 
chose for our chief office-bearer. Yet we had not 
fully appreciated him. We had not found out all his 
worth. Like a figure against the fleeting sunset sky, 
he had walked but a few short months in the eye of 
the whole people. They had yet to know how really 
great he was. It needed all the bitter tuition of these 
agonizing weeks to teach us at last what we, as a 
nation, have both lost and gained forever in him. 

In him and in his history were mingled to unex- 
ampled degree all those various elements which bound 
him alike to the humblest and the loftiest in the land. 
He stood four-square to all the world. He was a 
man of the people, and attached them passionately to 
himself; yet he was at home among the learned, and 
could stand before kings. His abilities, his training, 
his character, his career, embraced with extraordinary 
completeness almost every phase and factor of true 
greatness. Perhaps only America can breed such a 
man. Certainly only freedom and the Christian faith 
can train him. His foot touched almost every step 
in the long yet swift gradation from the very bottom 
to the very top of American life ; and at every step 



8 

he was the same strong, brilliant, and amply sufficient 
man. 

How often, since only one short year ago when he 
was before us for our suffrages, on through his induc- 
tion into office, his opening administration, and these 
weeks of heroism, have we gone over, with tearful 
surprise and pride, the contrasts and progress of 
that life, so beyond any fiction in the pathos of its 
early struggles, the splendor of its mid-day achieve- 
ment, and the immortal patience of its untimely 
close. Alas ! it is a dreadful loss we have met ; yet 
happy the people that has the story of such a life 
to form, till earth's latest generation, the lesson-book 
of its children. 

How striking the details : the child, fatherless at 
the age of two, the youngest in a brood of four in a 
frontiersman's log-home ; the little boy, taking his 
share of hard work in bearing the burden of a poor 
but heroic mother ; the lad, — farmer, carpenter, and 
tow-path driver by turns, and eager student always ; 
the youth, thirsting for knowledge, and grasping 
with unaided hands all the resources that neigh- 
boring schools could furnish ; the college graduate 
of twenty-five, among the first of his class at Wil- 
liams, pride of teachers, idol to this day of his 
fellows, and henceforth the imperishable ornament 
of the college that nestles among the Berkshire hills ; 



9 

the consummate teacher, the preacher, lawyer, and 
statesman at twenty-eight ; the brilliant soldier at 
thirty-two, planning and executing successful cam- 
paigns, and turning the awful tide of battle with his 
own courage ; for seventeen years the profound stu- 
dent of public affairs ; the masterly orator and 
acknowledged leader in the council chamber of the 
nation, and before fifty its supreme head ; not seek- 
ing but sought as fittest, welcomed and trusted as 
best of all, by the suffrages of a great people. How 
fair and thrilling the story, embracing without stain 
in its steady movement what fulness of life, what 
breadth of attainment, what grandeur of manhood! 

No wonder when the cursed shot was fired which 
laid him low, that you and I and all of us fell down. 
No wonder that tears of mingled indignation and 
love fell from the eyes of plain workingmen as they 
grasped their tools in field or shop. The bulletin- 
boards, through these sorrowful weeks, have been 
scanned by the common people more eagerly than by 
any others, for they knew he was one of them, — in 
thought, experience, and sympathy their fellow still, 
though all his great honors were thick upon him. 
He had tasted their privations, had cherished their 
worthiest ambitions : their cause was his, and for 
them he had lived. 

No wonder that finished scholars, and men of let- 



10 

ters, on both sides of the sea, have watched the issue 
of this fateful summer with bated breath, and, now 
that he has gone, pay him the tribute of their love 
and admiration ; for he was of their guild. He had, 
from first to last, the scholar's zeal and love of good 
learning and the orator's inspiration. By these 
alone he had made himself a high place among the 
best. 

No wonder that scarred and laurel-wreathed sol- 
diers felt that a worthy comrade had fallen, and hung 
with anxiety upon the tidings from his bed of pain ; 
for in his short career of war he had shown a sol- 
dier's genius and bravery, and had written his name 
among their foremost. His skill in organization, the 
breadth and wisdom of his counsels in campaign, the 
romance of his chivalrous ride through the carnage 
and flame of Chickamauga, from one broken wing 
of the army to the other, the country, whenever she 
thinks of her defenders, can never forget. 

No wonder that financiers, economists, and states- 
men the world over felt, when he was stricken down, 
that a strong pillar was broken ; for here, in his depth 
of insight, wealth of knowledge, and precision of 
statement, he had no superior. His speeches are 
a treasure-house of fact and principle scarcely 
matched in the history of national finance, and had 
made him a long trusted leader. 



11 



No wonder that teacher, Christian minister, and 
reformer grieve for his loss as for a brother ; for he 
believed in God, believed in the gospel of regenera- 
tion : and in each of these callings, — in the school- 
room, in the pulpit, on the platform, as well as on 
the floor of Congress, — he was devoted with a lofty 
consecration to the good of mankind. Few men are 
more fervent and unselfish in the service of their 
fellows than was he. 

No wonder that the rulers of earth's ancient king- 
doms felt that the hand which was lifted against him 
was lifted against them ; for they knew, that, not by 
hereditary claims, but by the diviner right of genius, 
learning, and manhood, as recognized by a free 
people, he was their peer. He made his own crown, 
and set it on his own head ; but kings saw that it 
was wrought of as pure metal and set with as serene 
gems as theirs. 

Yes, he was very great indeed, yet so fair and 
balanced in his greatness, that men could not easily 
say wherein it was. Superbly endowed at the out- 
set in body and mind, he was of massive and sym- 
metrical proportions in both. His intellect was of 
the largest mould, reflective rather than intuitive, but 
having a prodigious capacity, and a vigor and acute- 
ness of movement which made him easy master of all 
that he undertook. The reasoning powers were pre- 



12 

eminent in him, though they were kindled with an 
imagination which clothed all the results of his men- 
tal processes with beauty. These splendid intel- 
lectual gifts were trained by a prolonged course of 
severe, untiring, and faithful study. His example 
here should rouse every student. He honored his 
powers by making the utmost of them. They were 
enriched and disciplined by a varied and extraor- 
dinary experience in one of the most eventful periods 
of American history, until, when last March, in the 
fulness of his commanding faculties, he entered upon 
the duties of the presidency, he was perhaps at 
once more able, more learned, and more perfectly 
furnished for his great office than any of his prede- 
cessors. 

But intellect and intellectual acquirements alone, 
are but a small part of true greatness. They were 
but a small part of him. He possessed an uncom- 
mon breadth, transparency, and sweetness of nature, 
which, through all his marvellous career, grew in 
depth and purity, and remained, to the very end, 
simple, flawless, and serene as crystal. His genial- 
ity, charity, fearlessness and modesty were woven 
together in one shining cord, that bound hosts of 
friends to him with ties that death will glorify, but 
cannot sever. He was largely stocked with the best 
humanity. He could not magnify himself, or think 



13 



ill of others. He seemed incapable of hate, though 
not of indignation. His unselfishness was as con- 
spicuous as his ability ; and his friendships and pa- 
triotism were without alloy and strikingly robust. 

The delicacy and fulness of the domestic affections 
were such in him, that, from the time when, at his 
inauguration, he turned to kiss first his aged mother, 
who he insisted should be nearest him in his su- 
preme honor, down to the time when, from his bed 
of pain and death, he indited to her with his own 
hand the last letter he ever wrote ; from the time 
when, in the crowded, early days of his adminis- 
tration, he watched by the bedside of his wife, to 
the long, bitter weeks when she, in turn, maintained 
her heroic vigil by him, — the whole nation could 
look hourly, as it did, into the privacy and be only 
sanctified. 

But not even depth and richness of natural feel- 
ings and affections are the highest attribute of a true 
manhood. Beyond his greatness of intellect and 
greatness of nature, President Garfield was greatest 
of all in character. This, from the beginning to the 
end, was the permeating, controlling, and crowning 
factor of his illustrious personality. His moral pur- 
pose was deeply rooted. While a mere youth, he 
bowed himself in joyful submission to God. He 
became a simple, earnest disciple of Jesus Christ, 



u 



and his affiance to the supreme righteousness, truth, 
and love thus begun was never shaken, but grew 
stronger and more lustrous at every turn of his noble 
life, guiding and enlightening all his service, com- 
manding the reverence of his fellow-men at every 
step, lifting his name and work stainless above all 
reproaches, fixing in the hearts of the people prin- 
ciples that they will not let die, and, through the 
darkness and misery of the long, closing struggle, 
irradiating the wide land with the reality, beauty, 
and power of the Christian faith. All else may fade, 
but such character is imperishable. It ' is not of 
man ; yet men know it, and bow before it, as before 
the finger of God. It is by this that the dead Presi- 
dent is made immortal. This is his priceless legacy 
to American youth. 

There was nothing more beautiful in him than the 
constancy of this early religious faith, and the un- 
affected simplicity with which he always maintained 
the confession of it in connection with the somewhat 
obscure body of Christians with which he first allied 
himself. This was easy for him ; for religion with 
him was not a mere decency, sentiment, or theory. It 
was not divorced from morality, but it was a practical 
obedience to the divine law, and the inmost substance 
of his life. With anxious self-scrutiny, he demanded 
first of all for his actions the approval of God's voice 



15 



within him. Over and over, in utterances that thrilled 
his countrymen, he exalted godliness above gain. 
When even his native State was so nearly balanced 
that it needed but a touch to put her on the shame- 
ful side of dishonest money, and he, asked to accept 
a nomination to Congress, was cautioned not to lisp a 
syllable against the rising tide of falsehood, he boldly 
said : " Much as I value your opinions, I here de- 
nounce this theory as dishonest, unwise, and unpatri- 
otic ; and if I were offered a nomination and election 
for my natural life from this district, on this platform, 
I should spurn it." So when the same despicable 
heresy was infecting this Commonwealth, and he, 
three years ago this autumn, while making his mas- 
terly argument for honest payment of the public debt, 
on the platform of Faneuil Hall, was interrupted' 
with the cry, " It will cost more," he turned on the 
speaker, and, with the wrathful majesty of one of the 
old prophets, said : " Yes it costs something some- 
times to .be honest." Such utterances were but ex- 
ponents of the deep, strong currents of his life. 

He was a man of sturdy faith in God and grasped 
the great truths of the divine existence, sovereignty 
and providence, with the conviction of an old Puritan. 
In all this he had the simplicity of an earlier genera- 
tion than his own. Though he was thoroughly read 
in philosophy, literature, and modern science, no 



16 



touch of agnosticism tarnished the quiet strength of 
his belief in the God of his fathers. This gave him 
singular power over men. No episode in the history 
of American eloquence is more thrilling than his 
hushing a Wall-street mob into self-restraint after 
the murder of Lincoln, by lifting up his voice, like 
a second Isaiah, in the mighty words of Scripture, 
which he ended with that sentence of calm faith, 
which we have so often lately repeated from his lips : 
" God reigns, and the government at Washington 
still lives." 

But this dominant religious character, though so 
strong, was no ascetic thing. It made him temperate, 
reverent, supremely industrious, and chivalrous. It 
colored his whole life with beauty. By it, through 
his conspicuous position, he has shed undying lustre 
upon the common relations of life. By it his natural 
love of men was kindled into unselfish enthusiasm to 
serve them. It was no narrow, sour thing. It made 
him like a rock against which men gladly leaned. ' It 
made him invincible in the shock Qf battle, and 
amid the still more malign and tempestuous elements 
of politics. It made him strong to command, but 
stronger still to suffer. What a peerless example ! 
Oh, that the youth of this land in these days of greed, 
and lust of place, and unbelief in God, might take to 
heart the infinitely precious lessons of this life so 



17 

simple, yet so rich in its meaning, and know from the 
lips of him who, " being dead, yet speaketh," that, be- 
yond all success and fame, a living purpose in har- 
mony with the divine law, a character moulded by 
that of Christ, and filled with his Spirit, are the only 
enduring treasures ! 

To the tumult of varied thoughts that fills us at this 
hour, no fit utterance can now be given. We cannot 
enter into all the meaning of these heavy days. Yet 
there are some things to which the eloquence of the 
President's death, more persuasive even than that 
which he had in life, gives solemn emphasis. 

How empty seem all earthly ambition and station 
as we stand beside the bier and look at the shrunken 
remains of him, who, twelve weeks ago yesterday 
morning, walked forth into the sunlight at the sum- 
mit of civic honor! As on last Friday afternoon, 
beneath the vast dome of the Capitol, whose rotunda 
is crowded with the memorials of the nation's heroic 
deeds, the stricken wife and children drew nigh, in 
the silence and emptiness, for a last farewell of their 
dead, how vain seemed all earthly glory ! All strife, 
all selfish endeavor for distinction, are subdued and 
made still at that sight. " What shadows we are, 
and what shadows we pursue." The bright pageant- 
ry of earth is darkened; the tumult and discord of 



18 

her voices cease ; and, in the stillness, the sonl 
reaches out to assure herself of God, weaned of time, 
and hungering for the eternal things. God only is 
sufficient for us. All that does not take hold on him 
is vanity of vanities. 

We may be sure that these thoughts often pos- 
sessed the great man who has passed forever from 
the realm of human strife. How inexpressibly 
touching to-day sound his words, when, last spring, 
worn out with the importunity of clouds of office- 
seekers, and with constant watching by the sick-bed 
of his wife, the fear of whose death almost broke 
his heart, he said, with deep emotion : "I have had, 
in this trial, glimpses of a better and higher life 
beyond, which have made this life I am leading here 
seem utterly barren and worthless." Like the mur- 
dered Lincoln, he seems to have had some premoni- 
tions of his great sacrifice, and to have been chastened 
for it by eternal longings. 

How tender that last interview with his beloved 
classmates the night before his inauguration, when, 
looking with confiding love into the true faces of 
these old comrades, he seemed to cling to them, and 
dread the morrow, saying, " This honor comes to me 
unsought. I have never had the presidential fever, 
not even for a day. I have no feeling of elation in 
view of the position I am called upon to fill." Had 



19 

he glimpses of the coming shadow? These utter- 
ances can never pass from the memory of the people. 
It would seem as though the presidency could never 
again be the object of vulgar ambition to freemen. 

It is no time to speculate confidently upon the hid- 
den sources or probable results of this great calamity. 
Yet it is impossible, even in the midst of our sorrow, 
not to turn, for a moment, to the cause for which, in 
a just sense, President Garfield has become a martyr. 
When first he fell, the intelligence and conscience of 
the people seized instantly the outline of meaning 
which there was in the terrible deed. Their first 
impressions have been broadened and deepened by 
their silent watch for months in that sick chamber. 
It is safe to say that for years the whole people have 
not given so much sober thought to public affairs as 
they have since that fatal 2d of July. When Lin- 
coln was murdered, the significance of the atrocious 
act was plain. Then from this, as from hundreds of 
other pulpits throughout the land, the point was elo- 
quently urged, which the people knew before, that 
it was not the assassin's hand alone that held the 
pistol,„but the accursed spirit of slavery, demanding, 
as its final victim, in the last pitch of its malice, the 
father of the people. The issue indeed is not now 
so distinct. Nevertheless, the same reasoning ap- 



20 

plies. As then so now, the people have lost sight of 
the miserable wretch who dealt the awful blow, in 
their thoughtful and penitent inquiry as to the causes 
whose instrument he was. This is to their credit. 
They do not yet as clearly grasp those causes as they 
grasped slavery. That was like a cancer which we 
could put our finger on and had cut out when Lin- 
coln was killed. The evils to which the man we 
now mourn was a victim are more complicated, 
intangible, and hard to be defined, more like a 
poison in the blood, not tainting one section or one 
class alone, but vitiating all. 

It is in vain to say that the author of all this stu- 
pendous mourning was a madman ; that his act origi- 
nated in himself alone, and has no real bearing upon 
political life. His madness was the same in kind 
that for months before had infected thousands of 
partisans frenzied with a thirst for plunder. We 
would to-day gladly blot from our history and forever 
forget the humiliating record of the wretched strife 
for spoils that filled those miserable weeks of spring, 
tormented and distracted from the large work of 
statesmanship, to which he would give himself, the 
great soul of the man we loved, and heated the air 
with the insane fever of envy and hate, till the weak 
brain of the assassin was turned. The hate of one's 
brother, which is murder, was in the hearts of many 



21 

of whom we had a right to expect better things. It 
found violent expression in their speech. The murder 
itself was wrought by one dastard's hand. But the 
connection between the greed for place, which has so 
long depraved our politics, breeding the vilest pas- 
sions, and the murderous stroke itself, was not lost 
sight of by the people : their sense of it has grown 
with the pain and anxiety of these later weeks. That 
pistol-shot smote the whole nation with remorse, which 
forms to-day no small element in our grief. 

We have only to turn back to the eloquent words 
of the dead President, written scarcely four years ago, 
and to which his death gives solemn weight, to see 
how grave these evils seemed to him when, with singu- 
lar clearness and intensity, he said of the spoils system : 
" It is hardly possible to state with adequate force the 
noxious influence of this doctrine. The present sys- 
tem invades the independence of the executive, and 
makes him less responsible for the character of his 
appointments ; it impairs the efficiency of the legisla- 
tor by diverting him from his proper sphere of duty, 
and involving him in the intrigues of the aspirants for 
office ; it degrades the civil service itself by destroying 
the personal independence of those who are appointed ; 
it repels from the service those high and manly quali- 
ties which are so necessary to a pure and efficient ad- 
ministration ; and finally, it debauches the public 



22 

mind by holding up public office as the reward of 
mere party zeal. To reform this service is one of 
the highest and most imperative duties of statesman- 
ship." Alas ! in a sense he never dreamed of he 
has discharged that duty with superhuman might. 
Would that he had lived to work this reform ! Yet 
his death has been in its behalf. 

But we must not stop with any narrow view of 
the bearings of this great affliction. We must not 
blame our rulers and legislators alone for the evils of 
administration that have disgraced us. Whence come 
the throngs of office-seekers] Whence the beseech- 
ing, the threats, the intrigue that paralyze the service 
of those statesmen Avho would do their duty by us? 
Whence but from us, the people ? We have our share 
of blame to bear. The base passions which have so 
defiled our political life have their root and abound in 
other relations. Our national greed of gain, our selfish 
strife for patronage, have never received such thrilling 
rebuke as comes to-day from those dead lips. The 
motives and character of the murderer shrink to noth- 
ing when we take this broad view. He shall bear his 
own awful guilt ; but it is no foolish sentimentality to 
say that our chief magistrate has fallen for the people ; 
and all this great sorrow over him is mingled, we 
would earnestly believe, with a godly repentance and 
chastening of spirit such as this nation has never ex- 



23 

perienced. Oh that the Divine Spirit, through this 
visitation, may regenerate, not only political life, but 
the hearts of the whole people ! 

How inscrutable are the ways of the Divine Provi- 
dence ! It is ours, not to distrust or limit the Almighty 
but to wait patiently on him. We could not see any 
light through the thick cloud that fell on us that 
bright July morning. The President, by extraor- 
dinary abilities, and a still more extraordinary expe- 
rience, training, and character, seemed, beyond ques- 
tion, the fittest man in the whole nation for his post. 
He had not sought it : it had claimed him. He had 
been given us, as we believed, in answer to our 
prayers, through a canvass, both in nomination and 
election, of extreme delicacy and acrimony. He was 
at the acme of his splendid powers. He was the 
pride and stay of an aged mother ; the joy of a most 
loving wife and children ; the darling of myriads of 
friends ; and the glory of his college and its alumni, 
who loved him and were loved by him with a won- 
derful affection, and who awaited his coming to them 
with glowing hearts. The whole people — South as 
much as North — had profound faith in him, and 
the largest and most hopeful expectations of him. 
He was, after the confusion and wrangling of the 
first days, just setting himself with his transcendent 
gifts, his tireless enthusiasm, and his ever lofty sense 



24 

of duty, to his great task. How could he die then ? 
He whom God's hand had shielded through the fury 
of battle, how could he perish miserably by the bullet 
of an assassin 1 Oh, it could not be ! God would 
spare him. Surely there could be no purpose of good 
in such an end of this incomparable man. 

And so we prayed. As the flame of life flickered 
up and down ; as report followed swiftly upon report 
from morning to night ; as this and that means were 
tried, always keeping our ear at his bosom ; as the 
change of place was made, bearing him tenderly in 
our arms as though he were our own child, the whole 
people appealed with one impulse to Heaven to spare 
him. "What else could we- do ? That he had lived so 
long ; that we needed and loved him so much ; that he 
had battled so successfully and with such sublime pa- 
tience and courage against unknown agony so far, 
made it seem all the harder to give him up ; and men 
said, — prayerful men dared to say, — that if at last 
he died they should almost lose faith in prayer. Ah, 
how little we knew ! How little can we fathom the 
divine wisdom and love ! He died. The iron entered 
into the soul of his aged, gray-haired mother. It 
pierced the heroic bosom of his wife. It smote -to 
ashes the hopes of friends. It bereaved a whole 
nation as of its idol. 

Yet God heard. The people's prayer is being 



25 



already answered in a fulness of blessing such as we 
never conceived. So far is faith in God and in his 
wise and loving providence from being destroyed, that 
it never was so strong, never was planted in so many 
hearts. No profane doubts dare break in upon the 
nation's consciousness that to-day it stands in the 
divine presence. The dead President's hands have 
revealed God's face to his countrymen. The thought, 
the feeling, the conscience, of the people, have been 
quickened and exalted to a lofty pitch. The cost 
has been great. No lesser man, no smaller suffering, 
could have produced this effect. 

The services done by the dead in his life were 
great. There was well-grounded hope, that, if he 
were* spared, they would be greater still. But infi- 
nitely above all he had done, or that it was possible for 
him to do, are the blessings which, upon the present 
and coming generations, he has brought by his death. 
We dreaded, during the months of spring, lest the 
persistent chicanery, the selfish cunning, the secret 
malice of place-hunters, might be too much for the 
very greatness and large-heartedness of this man 
whom we had chosen, and who was intent upon the 
realization of the highest plans of good government. 
But he has vanquished them all now. We hoped he 
might withstand them. He has shamed and crushed 
them. We thought his administration would last 



26 

four years. It will last for centuries. We hoped 
that the grand ideas which were born in his thought- 
ful patriotism and love of duty, and to which his 
eloquence had given expression, might, through his 
rule, make some small impression upon the country. 
They have now, by his death, been written, as by the 
finger of God, upon the brain and conscience of the 
people. 

What hath God wrought by the sacrifice of this 
kingly man ! Surely we cannot go back to the old 
ways and spirit. Not only have his cabinet and 
successor been purified by this stroke, as we would 
fain believe, to accomplish what he himself might 
never have accomplished, but American youth have 
received a pattern and an inspiration beyond all 
price ; every Christian is made a better one ; every 
citizen is stirred to duty, as by an unseen hand ; 
every office-bearer is truer ; and the long line of chief 
magistrates that shall follow him down to the last 
shall be inspired by his example to nobler things. 

And he himself — oh, glorious destiny! Beyond 
almost any public man of his time fortunate in his 
life, he is infinitely more fortunate in his death. 
From the log cabin in the wilderness, to the zenith 
of earthly honor, it was one long, shining ascent, till 
the day he fell ; and then God gave him these weeks 
of suffering, with a world for his watchers, that his 
head might be wreathed with fadeless glory. 



27 



The principles of the republic of freemen which 
he enunciated and illustrated shall become the 
delightful and kindling study of future statesmen. 
His eloquence shall become the classic of generations 
yet unborn. His peerless and romantic bravery 
shall thrill all coming hearts that draw their swords 
in freedom's cause. Poetry and song shall weave 
into forms of unfading beauty for the people the 
simple, homely story of his early struggles, and the 
pathetic incidents of these later days. Sculpture, 
Painting, and History with her divine pen, shall 
write his fame among the few of earth's immortals ; 
side by side with William the Silent, with Wash- 
ington, with Lincoln the martyr : but beyond even 
these, there is an unspeakable pathos in his life, his 
fate, his sufferings, that shall make his name live 
with deathless fragrance in the hearts of mankind. 

Oh, yes ; God's ways are best ! Our prayers are 
more than answered. God has given him back to 
us indeed forever. Blessed, thrice blessed the peo- 
ple who can claim this life for their own ; to whom 
this precious legacy of spotless Christian manhood 
has fallen, to be for ages to its youth the quench- 
less inspiration of duty towards God and man. 



Franklin Press: 

Rand, Avery, &> Company, 

117 Franklin Street, 

Boston. 




M 'v 



